I stepped on the scale today and remember when we used modems to connect to BBSes and the early internet in the 80s and 90s and the modem would make this weird, screeching sound while connecting?
That’s what I did when I stepped on the scale.
I was up 1.2 pounds, another one of those big, fat overnight weight gains.
But in the spirit of a new year and new possibilities, I choose to take this as a chance to demonstrate how I can easily come down from my new, fatty height. Let us observe where I was in years past on January 1:
OK, I clearly fudged (hehe) up over the course of 2023, but I am still down 10.5 pounds from my portly state of 2022, so that remains a good thing. And this year I will continue to mind my snacking, stay active and do things that aren’t eating donuts, so I am confident the number a year from now will be…lower.
And I’ll burn more calories by blogging more. Let’s see if I can keep up a pace of at least two posts per day. I’m 1 for 1 so far!
We’re already seven years past Billy Joel’s projected dystopia of “Miami 2017”, 2010 (the year we make contact) is now 14 years in the rearview mirror, and Blade Runner’s dystopian Los Angeles of 2019 was supposed to happen five years ago.
By these cultural yardsticks, we are doing:
Better than Miami 2017
Better than Los Angeles 2019
Well, about 2010…
The movie 2010 came out in 1984 and imagined a world where Russians and Americans worked together in space (but were on the verge of starting WW3 on Earth). Despite Russia descending into an autocracy ruled by a brutal, invasion-loving dictator since then (meet the new boss, etc.), that cooperation still happens today (albeit with more tension) with the International Space Station. But humans have never ventured past the moon (nor even been there in the last 50 years), let alone voyaged out to Jupiter. We’ve left most of our exploration to unmanned probes and the movies1Unmanned probes are actually a very effective way to explore the reaches of our solar system.
So we are doing better than the dystopian versions of the future, but kind of standing still or regressing on the space exploration part. And any alien life that may be out there has not seen fit to help us with our various crises of climate, politics and all that. Maybe they look at us like the Joe Pesci character in Goodfellas. We amuse them.
But here’s to 2024, and to things getting better, hopefully, even as we continue to deal with the ills, problems and plagues of 2023 that don’t pause because we flip the calendar over to a new year2As I write this, there are reports of a 7.5 major earthquake in Japan. Another reminder that the world doesn’t pause for a new year.
Let’s start with the bad news: I am up again, and the rate increased, going from 0.9 pounds in November to 1.6 pounds in December. This is clearly not the way a weight loss trend should progress.
But when I look at the overall month, I do notice something that suggests it’s not as bad as it looks. On December 26, my weight suddenly jumped 1.1 pounds to a monthly high of 172.9 pounds, which was anomalous for the month. I dropped 1.8 pounds after this and if I had started that drop at the day-before weight of 171.8 pounds, I would have ended up with a monthly weight gain of 0.5 pounds, an increase small enough to be a rounding error.
Is this a bunch of rationalization? Yes! But it’s also accurate. And even 1.6 pounds is small enough that I could lose it in a few days.
What I’m saying is that I think I may finally have my weight loss more under control, and just in time for the new year.
First a couple of monthly stats:
Date
Weight
Body fat
Body water
Muscle mass
Dec. 1
169.5 pounds
24.7%
54.9%
30.2 kg
Dec. 31
171.1 pounds
25.4%
54.5%
30.3 kg
I gained a tiny bit of muscle, but also 0.7% of body fat, like I thought I was a bear getting ready to hibernate. Still, nothing too horrible.
Toward the end of the month, I really did improve on snacking and so for 2024 my goal will remain the same, to get to 150 pounds. At my current weight, that would mean losing 1.75 pounds per month (about 0.43 pounds per week), which seems reasonable and possible. And yet!
I started the year at 164.2 pounds and ended it at 171.1 pounds, so I gained 6.9 pounds, an average gain of about half a pound per month. From that perspective, it doesn’t look too bad. And in fact, here’s a fun change: My muscle mass went from 29.7 kg to 30.3 kg, so I did actually put on a little muscle. Woo.
We’ll see what 2024 brings. Hopefully not donuts.
Weight:
January 1, 2023: 164.2 pounds
Current: 171.1 pounds
Year to date: Up 6.9 pounds
December 1: 168.3 pounds
December 31: 169.2 pounds (up 0.9 pounds)
Body fat:
December 1: 24.7%
December 31: 25.4% (up 0.7%)
Skeletal muscle mass:
December 1: 30.2%
December 31: 30.3% (up 0.1%)
Body water:
December 1: 54.9%
December 31: 54.5% (down 0.4%)
Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
View from Cariboo Dam. Gloomy but freakishly mild.
Whoops, I somehow didn’t run all week and after eight days of non-running, my Training Status per my Garmin Forerunner regressed thus:
Maintaining
Recovery
Detraining (!)
Way to make me feel like a lazy slob, watch. I corrected this by going out on a rare weekend run and despite possible showers in the forecast, it remained dry and unusually mild once again. How mild? The Apple weather app is showing this currently:
This breaks the record for high temperature on this day, too.
So I headed out with just a single layer up top, which was perfectly fine. At first, I was going to just run the river trail and call it good, but after I got there, a woman with a rather large dog a short distance ahead of me stopped and took her dog off its leash. Bad dog owner! She then used one of those throwing stick things to toss a ball down the trail for her jumbo-sized dog to fetch, repeatedly. I fumed about this for a bit, then changed my mind and decided to run at the lake after all. So thanks, bad dog owner, for making me get even more exercise than I planned!
As the weather seemed to be holding at cloudy, I also decided to not do a short loop and did a full trip around the lake. My 5K pace was very similar to my last run at 5:48/km, though my BPM was higher at 157, not surprising given the eight days off. I am also feeling a bit stiffer than I normally would post-run, but nothing a good day of rest won’t fix.
Pleasantly, the trail was not that busy. Maybe the clouds–which did look a bit threatening–scared a lot of people off. Many people were bundled up, which would normally make sense. I mean, December 30th is very much winter, after all, but 11C is the kind of high temperature we’d normally get in March. You really don’t need gloves and a parka when it’s 11C.
Also, as a change of pace, I skipped the Spruce and Conifer Loops, after starting my run by the fountain near the dam. This meant that I was about 0.22 km short of the 2 km mark when I passed the 2K marker. I did not like this. I closed the gap a bit by taking the Piper Mill Trail, but I normally hit the markers pretty much right-on or even slightly ahead by taking the side trails, so I’ll probably go back to them next time. Still, it was nice for a change of pace.
In terms of issues, none really. The left hip was a bit crankier because of the time off, but didn’t factor in much. The left knee is a bit stiff, but more in the not-running-for-8-days way, not because of knee issues in general.
Anyway, it was nice to get out and get back on track. That will be a wrap for my runs in 2023, a year of ups and downs, for sure.
Burnaby Lake, looking east, post-run
Stats:
Run 842
Average pace: 5:48/km
Training status: Recovery
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:43 a.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 29:13
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 11ºC
Humidity: 88%
Wind: light
BPM: 157
Weight: 171.1
Total distance to date: 6100 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (235/441/676 km)
I asked Adobe Firefly to create a scene of hide and seek in a mansion and, really, I should have known what I would get. I mean, it did nail the hiding part.
It’s been a while since I did one of these, and I figured I should get one more in before the end of the year. It’s not perfect, but it’s snow goosey enough. Based on a photo I took at Iona Beach on October 22, 2023.
I wished my living room had looked like this when I was 30. (Image generated through NightCafe)
I don’t mean old-timey music like ragtime or something, rather I’m talking about eschewing a streaming service like Apple Music and going back to my old music collection, which consists mostly of CDs I’ve purchased and ripped over the past 30+ years. All of the files are local, tucked into a folder on my PC. The app to play them, Windows 11’s Media Player, provides album art and metadata, and that’s it. It doesn’t curate, recommend, provide radio stations, “for you” or anything else. It just lets you listen to your music library.
And it’s kind of refreshing. I can listen for hours and know I’m not burning bandwidth (I know I have the bandwidth, it’s more a principle thing). There’s a tangibility that’s missing with streaming. And everything is something I’ve already picked out, bought and listened to many times already. There is a welcome familiarity, but also a chance to revisit albums (kids, ask your parents what an “album” is) I haven’t listened to in years. Certain music invokes memories of other times and places. It’s weird and, usually, kind of wonderful.
Unlike my phone, which has a truncated version of my music library, the PC has everything, so when I hit shuffle, I never quite know what will come up. I like that.
Now I’m off to listen to Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe, which sounds more like a law firm than a majority of the members of Yes.
Firefly has been extensively trained on chicken scratch.
I couldn’t remember if I had made resolutions for 2023, which may give you an idea of how well I did at keeping them. Let’s find out and have a good cry together!
The 2023 resolutions were:
Get to 150 pounds by the end of February.
Verdict: Massive fail. As of today, I am 171.8 pounds, which is exactly seven pounds higher than a year ago and more than 20 pounds above my intended goal. I dreamed of being a hummingbird and ended up being a blimp.
Keep running.
Verdict: Success! Despite knee issues, I kept running regularly throughout the year.
Finish my Gum Gum game.
Verdict: Neither success nor failure, as I put the GGP game on pause to develop a different game first as a prototype.
Do more bird art.
Verdict: Success! I am working on more bird art right now.
Keep birding.
Verdict: Success! But this was a gimme.
Finally finish my blog redesign.
Verdict: Failure-ish. I did tweak the design a bit, but the big redesign still awaits.
Finally start doing some stretching.
Verdict: Success! After the issues with my knees and a couple of visits to a physiotherapist, I now stretch before I run.
Weird bonus resolution:
Record an original song in Garage Band.
Verdict: Failure. I think I opened Garage Band once. Fortunately, this was a silly resolution.
Overall: Eight resolutions, four successes. This is actually better than I expected. Onward to 2024!
My Fancy Resolutions for 2024
NOTE: For 2024 I am skipping the "easy" stuff that I would probably be doing anyway, like running and birding.
Get to 150 pounds. But for real this time. Gotta go with the classics.
Finish my prototype game. Title to be revealed soon™.
Complete my blog redesign. Another classic. It could happen!
Revive my newsletter. I am actually working on this now, and have moved from Substack to Buttondown for the hosting.
Complete one of my unfinished novels. Likely either The Mean Mind or Road Closed. I’ve been itching to get back into writing again, and either of these stories will be fun to noodle around on.
Start a new blog or something. I kind of have something in mind, we’ll see what happens.
Focus on:
Being happy
Staying healthy
Bringing good into the world
Getting decent sleep, which will help with all of the above
New for 2024: I will check in at the end of each month to see how well I am doing on these things and use a letter, star, number or some other system to mark my progress or lack thereof. It’ll be fun!
…unless you are talking about grammar, then your Boxing Day email flyer may suffer a little under the load. I remember working Boxing Day in retail1It is the abyssal hell you imagine, so I’ll cut the proprietor here some slack and not call them out by name.
I remember way back (we’re talking about the 1990s here at the latest) when Boxing Day sales were items featured on local news, mainly because people would line up at A&B Sound at some absurdly early hour to get great deals on stereo and related AV equipment. Remember when people would line up for the new iPhone? It was like that, except it happened every year, for decades.
Now it’s mostly just a ton of e-flyers in my inbox and people placing orders online. And Boxing Day starts on Christmas Day…or earlier.
And I’m okay with that, really. I do not want to stand in a line.
(Also, I would be remiss to not point out the somewhat odd choice of using “It Gets Better!” as a shopping slogan, since it is best known for the It Gets Better Project to help out LGBTQ+ youth.)
